A recent $1 million investment from Intel Products Vietnam helped Arizona State University to sponsor six Vietnamese scholars for one-year master’s fellowships to speed the transformation of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) into an innovative Smart City by 2025.

Facilitated by Arizona State University's Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program known as HEEAP, the Intel Grand Challenge Master’s Fellows began their studies within graduate engineering programs at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering in August 2017. Six Vietnamese scholars arrived at Arizona State University in August to study in Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering master’s programs as part of the Intel Grand Challenge Master’s Fellowship program facilitated by ASU’s Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program. Pictured are five of the students arriving at Phoenix International Airport on August 7. Photo courtesy of Angela HarguessDownload Full Image

“I chose chemical engineering to dig deeper into the industry and learn more about using chemistry to solve environmental and energy problems,” said Hung, who studied analytical chemistry at Vietnam National University Hanoi University of Science prior to this fellowship. “I hope that I can manage to help Ho Chi Minh City to build modern systems regarding wastewater treatment, air quality control and food quality control.”

As part of their efforts to advance Ho Chi Minh City to become a Smart City, fellows will work on an applied project to develop their skills. After they finish the program by August 2018, fellows will return to Vietnam and begin work on Smart City projects for the HCMC government for at least three years.

The scholars attended ASU’s Fall Welcome event on Aug. 15, as an introduction to the university.

Photo courtesy of Pham Quoc Thai

“I am really honored,” Ha said about the opportunity to work on HCMC’s Smart City projects. “I want to be at ASU to learn more new things and then come back and contribute my ability to operate this project. I believe that this project will help my country increasingly become modern and developed.”

All six fellows are excited about their time at ASU.

“ASU is No. 1 in innovation, and I also know that there are a lot of internet of things systems facilitating students around campus,” Thai said. “I think that ASU’s campus can be seen as a small Smart City. ASU also has many labs and clubs related to smart sensor applications where I can discover more about the internet of things.”

Recent Vietnamese bachelor’s degree graduates whose engineering-related studies focused on Smart City design were eligible for the fellowships. The final six scholars were recommended by their dean or department chair, met standard ASU admission requirements and were chosen based on their undergraduate GPAs, GRE scores, English proficiency and interviews with the HCMC People’s Committee, Intel and ASU.

“It has been an honor to collaborate with Intel Products Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee,” said Jeff Goss, associate vice provost for SE Asia Programs at ASU. “This fellowship will help to further the development and decide of HCMC into one of the world’s premier Smart Cities.”

Founded in 2010, HEEAP is a collaboration of academic, government and corporate partners in the United States and Vietnam whose goal is to improve the quality of higher engineering education and technical vocational programs in Vietnam — a country that is quickly becoming a hub of innovation. Applied and hands-on workshops HEEAP offers at ASU and abroad help to create work-ready graduates with applied technical skills needed by industry.

HEEAP has previously supported fellowships at ASU to help female faculty at partner universities extend their master’s education. During the 2016–17 academic year, HEEAP facilitated the Advancing Women in Engineering Fellowship, a one-year opportunity for Vietnamese female students to earn their master’s degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering or information technology at ASU.

Monique Clement

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Military veterans are disciplined, task-focused, team-oriented and get the job done.These are the same traits required in the information technology field.Arizona has one of the fastest-growing economies for IT careers, with more than 17,000 full-time career positions currently unfilled, according to experts at ASU and networking hardware company Cisco Systems. At the same time, there is strong ne...

Connecting veterans to IT opportunities

ASU co-hosts IT Awareness Day at Tempe campus, one of a pair of job events focused on giving military vets meaningful work

Military veterans are disciplined, task-focused, team-oriented and get the job done.

These are the same traits required in the information technology field.

Arizona has one of the fastest-growing economies for IT careers, with more than 17,000 full-time career positions currently unfilled, according to experts at ASU and networking hardware company Cisco Systems. At the same time, there is strong need for career support for veterans transitioning to civilian life.

“Far greater than saying to a veteran, ‘Thanks for your service,’ is to hire a veteran and give them meaningful work,” said Benjamin C. Freakley, former commanding general for the U.S. Army and special adviser to ASU President Michael Crow for leadership initiatives at Arizona State University.

“I can train someone to fix a computer, but I can’t train them to show up to work on time, to be a valued member, to be a leader. The military trains and imbues all those positive traits in the men and women who served our country.”

Now ASU and Cisco are hoping to serve veterans by hosting the inaugural IT Awareness Day on Thursday, Sept. 14, at ASU's Tempe campus. This six-hour event starts 1 p.m. at the Memorial Union and will feature Cisco, Amazon, Intel and other prominent members of the community and tech sector. Panelists from veterans service organizations and career representatives from industries such as health care, manufacturing, energy, transportation and logistics will also provide insights into trends in IT, work culture and a look at what the future holds for professionals within the state of Arizona.

Designed with veterans in mind, the free event is open to the public and will be streamed for those who can’t attend in person. Registration is encouraged.

The IT Awareness Day will be followed up by a Nov. 10 hiring event at the Phoenix Convention Center, where job seekers can be pre-matched with jobs and potentially have interviews on the day of the event.

Steve Borden, director of the Pat Tillman Veterans Center, said pairing veterans with the IT and STEMscience, technology, engineering, math sectors is a seemingly natural fit, but a few gaps still do exist.

“Veterans get a lot of hands-on experience using high-tech equipment and are really primed for the IT field because in a lot of ways, it’s what they do in the service,” Borden said. However, he added, often what they are lacking is the civilian-equivalency certification to leverage their experience.

Borden said veterans are also not aware of the importance of branding and marketing themselves as they enter civilian life.

“Joining the military is seen as a selfless service, and an individual trying to advance themselves too openly is often looked down upon and usually does not do well in the military,” Borden said. “Helping veterans in that aspect of transitioning and appropriately advancing themselves in the civilian sector needs to take place.”

The two events were prompted in part by co-sponsor Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT and networking. Its leaders decided at a June 2011 meeting to make it a priority to hire veterans.

“The question asked at that meeting was, ‘We give hundreds of millions of dollars around the world for charitable causes, but what are we doing for our veterans?’” said Michael Veysey, director of veterans programs at Cisco Systems.

Veysey said Vietnam-era veterans such as himself were not often the beneficiaries of today's goodwill, but employers have changed their attitudes over time. He said companies like Cisco recognize the value veterans bring to jobs and are doing what they can to help.

He said Arizona’s veteran population, estimated around 650,000 people, can put the state at a great advantage by sending a message that vets can be a force after their careers in the military.

“We would like to establish Arizona as a national center of excellence for veterans in employment innovation.”

IT Awareness Day

What: A day dedicated to raising awareness of career possibilities in information technology, featuring industry panelists and hiring managers.When: 1-7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14.Where: Memorial Union, ASU's Tempe campus.Admission: Free and open to the public.Details: Event schedule can be found here. RSVP here.